What Erling Haaland's blockbuster new contract REALLY reveals about Manchester City's 115 charges verdict and why it will push Mo Salah towards Liverpool exit, writes IAN HERBERT
Share:
When Everton and Nottingham Forest faced the threat of points deductions last season, you could smell the anxiety washing through the corridors of those clubs - stalked by the sudden spectre of relegation and unable to promise Premier League football to players they wanted to buy.
![[City are currently fighting a legal battle with the Premier League, but chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak (left) has always insisted the club is innocent of any wrongdoing]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/17/16/94217789-14295937-image-a-2_1737130651320.jpg)
In the moment they announced an agreement to pay Erling Haaland a salary of £400,000 a week and rising, for a period of approaching a decade, Manchester City signalled that there is not the mildest anxiety hanging over them. Not the remotest sense that the verdict, expected within the next few months from an independent tribunal convened by the Premier League, will go against them.
![[Tying down Haaland to a long-term deal suggests City are confident they will win their case]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/17/16/94217683-14295937-image-a-3_1737130710147.jpg)
The imaginative Haaland contract signing video released by City exuded self-confidence and sent a frank message to the Premier League: ‘It will be business and spending as usual here, for as long as you can imagine.’. It wasn’t just a show they were putting on. City’s owners’ belief in their own innocence is absolute. The adamance of Khaldoon Al Mubarak, their chairman, that the club’s sponsorship deal with Etihad Airlines was not artificially inflated to beat spending rules, means that if the alleged breaches of the rules are made out, it would be viewed as a travesty, to be challenged for all days.
![[Mo Salah is yet to extend his Liverpool deal, with his contract up at the end of the season]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/17/16/94217783-14295937-Mo_Salah_is_yet_to_extend_his_Liverpool_deal_with_his_contract_u-m-6_1737130805255.jpg)
It is possible that a clause has been written into Haaland’s new contract stipulating that, should such a Premier League conviction come and City be relegated, he can leave for a set fee. But another of the possible outcomes – a substantial fine and moderate points reduction for City’s alleged failure to cooperate with the Premier League investigation – would still see Haaland reduced to playing in the Europa League next season.
![[Liverpool owners FSG - fronted by John W Henry (pictured) - must decide whether to pay Salah a fortune, even though he is due to turn 33 this summer]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/17/16/94218011-14295937-image-a-7_1737130870328.jpg)
